


Soft (A Love Story in Three Bites)

by mia_ugly



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Experienced Aziraphale (Good Omens), F/F, Genderswap, Gratuitous abuse of brackets, Gratuitous abuse of pears, Ineffable Wives, Offscreen reference to Aziraphale/OC, Pining obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-07-29 01:46:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20074090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly/pseuds/mia_ugly
Summary: Crowley was an angel, once. Before she fell.Aziraphale was a warrior (she fell too. It just took a little longer.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So much gratitude to @ineffably-effable for their keen beta skills, encouragement, and Ineffable Wives head-canon (Aziraphale is Olivia Colman and Crowley is Cate Blanchett and yes, that is very correct) and to @drawlight, patron saint of pine forests, for their loveliness.
> 
> I'm using she/her as both of them present and identify as female in this story (though we know that Crowley's gender is probably a bit more shifting and unpinnable.)
> 
> This fic is done, just editing I SWEAR. Look at these eyes, see how honest and wide and blue they are.

  
  


_ And a softness came from the starlight _

_ And filled me full to the bone. _

_ W.B. Yeats, from “The Wanderings of Oisin” _

**Cold Open:**

The Angel of the Eastern Gate has hair that reaches past her waist. It’s a shining blonde ringlet-y business, the colour of white sand or sun-bleached parchment. The colour of citrine, worn smooth and set in a ring.

Crawly hasn’t seen all of these things in person but knows instinctively they are the colour of the Angel’s hair. 

As the storm clouds creep closer, and the wind builds with them, the curls whip across the Angel’s face, tangle around her fingers, catch in her mouth.

“ _ Phtah _ -” the Angel says. 

Crawly stares at her. 

The Angel laughs then, nervously, pulling the damp strands from the corner of her lips. “Think I might cut this off. It’s an awful lot of bother down here.”

Crawly stares at her. 

Tries to think of something - something to say. 

“Pity you gave that sword away. Could have done it in one go.”

The Angel laughs nervously again before she seems to think better of it. Then she gives Crawly a Very Disapproving Look. It shouldn’t be as charming as it is, except there are such lines between her eyebrows, scribbles of judgemental ink (there are many ways to fall. Crawly fell from Heaven like an anchor, or a bullet, or a lead bloody balloon. Looking at the Angel now, Crawly has the awful suspicion that she still falls in exactly the same way.)

“I don’t know if the Almighty would approve of her Divine Armament being used in such a manner.”

“Oh? And what is it being used for now? Its intended purpose, you think?”

The flaming sword is gone, and the garden is empty. Adam and Eve have survived - Crawly doesn’t know, maybe a couple of hours - in the mean, cruel, endless desert. The sky is getting dark, storm clouds moving closer. Crawly has another awful suspicion that she’ll be the kind of person who likes storms. She likes the colour of them already. The scent of electricity and hunger.

“I suppose not.” The Angel looks vexed, and then anxious, and then half blind as another thick curl hits her in the eye. “Oh, for - this hair.” She pushes it out of her face, and Crawly had been an angel once (it was a long time ago) but she’s never seen someone so completely look the part as this white-robed, golden-haired, absolute mess beside her.

She stares. She can’t stop staring.

They both hear the rain before they feel it, a pattering like fingers against stone. The Angel’s wing is over Crawly’s head before the first drop can hit her, and her feathers smell like struck-matches and sunlight, maybe a little like lilies too. It’s approaching the smell of heaven, but not quite. Crawly remembers the way heaven smells, it’s in her dreams sometimes. 

It’s nothing like sunlight and struck-matches. Nothing like this.

She wishes the Angel hadn’t moved close enough for Crawly to know what she smells like. Hopefully it will be something she forgets.

They stay like this for a few moments, close and silent, as the first rain falls hard and Crawly falls harder (an angel and a demon, looking out over the wide, wet world.)

  1. ** peach**

It started in a garden. 

There was an apple, a pretty one, red as the oldest stars. 

Then there was hunger.

There was a demon too, hissing suggestions against the shells of innocent ears, but she wasn’t the kind of demon Aziraphale expected. Not the kind she’d ever met before. 

Back then she’d thought most demons were ugly, covered with maggots and flies and dripping honey from between their teeth, promising you everything while creeping slowly closer, close enough to bite -

But there’s nothing ugly about Crowley. 

The demon in question is currently a nervous black exclamation point in the chair opposite. She holds a wine glass in one hand while her other rests on the linen tablecloth, clenching and unclenching like a heart pumping blood.

Her hands are pale and long-fingered, nails painted the colour of night (chipped). She’s twitchy this evening, glancing over her shoulder, flinching when a waiter passes by too closely. She is garnet-mouthed and angular as geometry, and nothing, nothing about her is ugly. 

Quite the opposite in fact (and this is a dangerous path to take. How did we set out on it? Oh, yes - gardens. Apples.) 

Aziraphale doesn’t like them. 

They make her nervous. Take her back to a moment when she thought that maybe she’d ruined everything that yet existed to be ruined. Not that events in the Garden didn’t probably possibly proceed just as they ought to have, and the whole flaming sword incident has worked itself out more or less. But back in Eden (the tree and the fruit and the snake-sleek demon standing on the wall beside her, smiling like the both of them hadn’t just abetted Original Sin) well, it was all a bit much. 

So apples are off the table for Aziraphale from now until whenever apples stop being a thing. She still has an odd and distinctly anxious reaction to the smell of them. 

The bite.

Peaches are a different story. 

( _ When are we? Years before the Antichrist, but more specificity than that doesn’t matter. It could be any meal they eat together, it always goes like this. Watch. _ )

The Ritz perfected La Pêche Melba centuries ago (Aziraphale enjoyed it then too), but the peaches must be particularly delicious today (Montreuil peaches, wonderful) and the ice cream is the ideal balance of bitter and sweet, vanilla with a hint of a burn to it. She scrapes her spoon against the side of the silver timbale, savouring each bite.

“You’re going to get us arrested, the way you’re eating that,” Crowley says with a shake of her head.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

They’ve been seeing each other more regularly since around the 1970s. It’s an odd thing, and Aziraphale doesn’t quite know what started it. There was the Holy Water business and the - that panicked moment in the car that doesn’t quite bear thinking about. But after that, she and Crowley just started to run into each other. 

Crowley will show up at the bookshop and Aziraphale will put the kettle on.

Aziraphale will stumble upon her at a park, and Crowley will take her for a spot of lunch. 

They perform the occasional temptation or miracle of course, they still have work to do, but for the most part, they just - linger. Aziraphale is getting quite used to Crowley’s long legs stretched out over the arm of her sofa, talking nonsense about Lord Byron.

Crowley is getting used to finding fine strands of hair the colour of firelight clinging to her tweed coats and pashminas.

It’s fine.

Well, no, it’s not really. This sort of connection can’t be something that Heaven would ever approve of. An angel and demon - it’s unthinkable that the two of them would have any sort of relationship whatsoever, not to mention something skirting the edges of - friendship. Perhaps. Something in that neighbourhood.

Worse than that, though - is what it’s doing to Aziraphale. ‘The Crowley business’ (and that’s how she thinks of it in her head, when she thinks of it at all - which is hardly ever, really) has washed some feelings up on shore, feelings Aziraphale was quite certain she thoroughly drowned centuries ago. 

She used to go years, decades without seeing Crowley. That was manageable. And when they did see each other they occasionally rowed and occasionally got falling-down drunk, and Aziraphale was usually unhappy to see the demon go but - but it never felt like this. 

(Crowley is watching her. Aziraphale must think of something to say.

“My dear, you must try some of this! I believe there’s rosemary in this ice cream.”

Crowley eyes Aziraphale’s dessert like it might bite her. “I’m all right.”)

_ It feels like an injury. _

Aziraphale was a warrior once, for all her soft cashmere sweaters. She was a guardian of the Eastern Gate because she knew how to handle a flaming sword. You wouldn’t know it to look at her current form, but she’s well-versed in injury. She’s had flesh rent, bones broken, fire licking against her feathers (the smell, you can’t imagine) on the demonic field of battle.

It’s a bit like that when Crowley leaves. But it’s not the ragged-edged tearing of skin, the slice of muscle - it’s a deeper sensation. An invisible sort of injury, a wrongness you cannot see from the outside, can only feel. The question without an answer - is there something broken? Am I hurt? What has happened?

The kind of injury you can convince yourself to bear. To weather. Perhaps the kind you talk yourself out of seeking help for. Suppose that it is just in your head, that there aren’t any closed fractures, shards of bone, pressing up against your soft tissue.

Missing Crowley is like an injury. 

But then, lately, being around Crowley feels exactly the same way. So that’s - 

Just -

_ Tickety-bloody-boo. _

Aziraphale realizes she’s lapsed into silence again, and she takes another bite to give her hands something to do. The taste of peach fills her mouth and her nostrils, and she lets out a helpless little noise that draws Crowley’s attention immediately to her face.

Crowley’s eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, of course, but Aziraphale has spent millennia learning the shape of Crowley’s mouth and all the things it suggests. That mouth has been covered in wine-red lipstick since the 1600’s (didn’t always work out particularly well, there were a couple of awkward situations during the Witch Hunts, but that’s less of an issue these days. Shadwell aside.) 

“Are you certain I can’t offer you any? These peaches -“

“I believe you, angel.” Crowley takes a sip of wine but keeps her eyes on Aziraphale, a little smirk twisting the corner of her mouth. Somehow she manages to make something as basic as a smirk seem rather – like an attack on decency. 

And Aziraphale knows that all these little looks and gestures, the quirk of merlot-coloured lips, have nothing to do with her. Nothing at all. Crowley is a demon, and she’s wonderful, but temptation is second-nature to her. It’s what she does. It isn’t Crowley’s fault that at some point in the 1500’s, Aziraphale went and got completely the wrong idea about - everything.

It took her a few more decades to figure it out - the odd and prickling reaction to Crowley’s presence, like drops of wax against her skin (not painful, just startling.) Took Aziraphale a few decades after that to be informed (by a local midwife, lovely woman, had fascinating theories about rue) what her face did when she looked at Crowley. 

(“Like a rose turning toward the sun,” the woman had said, and Aziraphale stuttered out a chorus of denial in three part harmony. The midwife laughed at her, shaking her head, and months later, when Aziraphale had access to a looking glass, she tried to see it for herself. She thought of Crowley the last time she had seen her, prowling around the grounds of a battlement, tempting sentries to drink. She thought of Crowley’s red red hair and red red mouth and - oh. 

There it was in the mirror. A rose turning toward the sun, for Heaven’s sake. What a disaster.) 

“What do you think?” Crowley asks, and Aziraphale realizes that Crowley has been speaking this whole time. 

“Um - yes.” The angel does what she always does when she’s caught up in a troubling whirl of thoughts she has no right to - she smiles. Widens her eyes in the most angelic manner possible. “Haha, just so.”

“You aren’t even listening to me.” Crowley snorts. “You’re too busy making eyes at the rest of your sundae.”

“Sundae? My dear, this is not a sundae.”

“There’s ice cream and this-and-thats, how is it not a sundae?”

“Because -“ Aziraphale isn’t going to get into dessert semantics right now (she actually isn’t properly sure about the answer, this may be a question better suited for a philosopher.) “Because the ice cream is not the point. The peaches are the point.”

“You’re the point,” Crowley mutters, and then frowns. She quickly goes for her wine glass, tosses the rest of it back.

Aziraphale watches her throat as she swallows.

Aziraphale watches her pale fingers on the stem of her glass.

Aziraphale is getting dangerously used to watching Crowley. It’s becoming commonplace, like a routine: Aziraphale gets up, has a cup of tea, putters around the bookshop dissuading any customers that might want to leave with an actual book. Aziraphale has lunch, has another cup of tea, stares at Crowley until her vision goes white (and when Crowley isn’t there she thinks about her instead, sees her red red hair, and her red red mouth, and her long black legs kicked up over the arm of Aziraphale’s sofa-)

“Angel, honestly -“

( _ The way you watch her is not normal. You know this. There’s nothing of heaven in your eyes on her, nothing divine, it’s all brimstone and ashes and base, base, base. If anyone noticed, if Gabriel saw - _ )

“Aziraphale.”

“Sorry! Yes, I’m listening now. Just -“ She opens her mouth to come up with some excuse, something that doesn’t taste like burned sugar. “It is - a very good dessert.” 

There, that’s something Crowley will accept: Aziraphale being driven to distraction by a bowl of peaches (they are really very good, though.)

“I was asking if you fancied a film after this? They’re playing one of those dull black and white ones you like in Leicester Square. “

“Oh.” Despite the turmoil in her head, Aziraphale can’t help the delight that breaks like dawn over her face. Outdoor cinema - that was her one of her’s. “That’s a splendid idea. Yes, let’s.”

Crowley cranes her head around, looking for their waiter. “This one’s mine, I owe you from the last.”

Aziraphale finishes the final spoonful of her dessert, letting the taste of peaches linger on her tongue. “Are you quite certain?” 

“Carved in stone,” Crowley says, flicking herself in the temple (and only flinching slightly.)

The skyline is turning the uneasy pink of dusk by the time they leave the Ritz. They don’t walk arm in arm (they could, no one would notice, but Aziraphale is very careful about when and how she touches Crowley. She was a warrior once. She knows how to defend herself.) 

The pavement is crowded, however, so the two of them stay close together. So close that Crowley’s coat sometimes rubs against Aziraphale’s shoulder. So close that their hips occasionally bump together (never their hands.)

Crowley’s still on edge, and Aziraphale doesn’t know why. She can’t seem to stop scanning their surroundings, or glancing anxiously over at Aziraphale, like she’s afraid she might disappear. Even as Crowley’s swaggering along, commenting idly on the sorry state of public shrubbery, Aziraphale can still sense the demon looking at her from the corner of her eye.

That’s fine.

Aziraphale doesn’t need to say anything, doesn’t need to ruin this with words, if she can simply feel the warmth of Crowley’s regard against her cheekbone. What would Aziraphale say anyway? There aren’t phrases, sentences, books deep enough to hold the way she feels about Crowley. There isn’t a well that wouldn’t be overflowing the minute Aziraphale opened her ridiculous mouth. 

Angels are beings of love, but Aziraphale’s love burns pale blue. She is not the honeyed lamplight of temptation or charm, not like the demon. She’s heard all the stories, knows Crowley has been tempting her way across the globe for six thousand years. And Aziraphale has seen the way other people look at her friend as she struts around in black with her sunglasses and her mouth and her shock of carnelian hair. The stares Crowley gets are equal parts terrified and fascinated, and though Aziraphale knows that Crowley is more shadowy disaster than anything else, she does have a certain, undeniable - panache. 

And Crowley is kind (even though she’ll never own up to it) and soft (even though she keeps that bit hidden) and terribly amusing once she’s got a few glasses of Château Margaux in her. 

And Crowley is - 

“Do you fancy a coffee on the way?” Crowley asks, smoke rolling in her voice.

“Lovely. Yes, all right.” Aziraphale’s voice shakes a bit, but Crowley thankfully doesn’t notice or doesn’t care to comment. 

And Crowley is loved. 

That’s the word for it, though it’s not a word Aziraphale will ever say out loud. How foolish would that be? What a bad joke. (Sometimes Aziraphale thinks about it and an awful, warbling sound claws out of her throat, something she tells herself is a laugh.) They’re on different sides, at cross-purposes, and regardless Crowley would never  _ consider  _ -

It’s fine, though. The status quo of dinners and drinks and walks in the park is more than enough. And if she catches herself loving Crowley in a way that feels too much like a cracked rib or a fever (leaving beads of sweat glittering against her pale hairline) that’s just something that will have to be managed.

Aziraphale loves a lot of things and none of them hurt this much. She’s determined to love Crowley that way too, eventually. It will just take a bit more practice.

(She was a warrior once. Her tolerance for pain is remarkably high.)

* * *

Back in the beginning (gardens and apples and what have you) there was some question of what form Aziraphale was going to take. Out of the infinite options available (and despite Gabriel’s unimpressed “bit matronly but okay...”) she thinks she made the right choice. 

Aziraphale’s body is a good one. She likes to think so anyway.

She’s had it for over six-thousand years and it’s comforting now, comfortable. Rather like angora, or Egyptian cotton, or that lovely plush bathrobe Crowley bought her after Aziraphale complained about the state of the dressing gown she’d had since 1806.

Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being matronly. A woman of her age and description - slightly lined around the eyes, slightly soft around the middle - can go places without notice. It’s something that’s come in handy. Of course she’s had to use the odd miracle, but for the most part - from Ancient Greece to the late Middle Ages to the turn of the century - her presence at any significant event went unremarked upon. She was assumed to be a camp follower or washerwoman or someone’s mum, and people quickly glanced away when they saw her at all.

It’s much the same these days. She has a face just gamin enough to seem friendly and a bit eccentric, she has a beautifully unremarkable body, she’s of an age where most of the world has resigned her to wallpaper that occasionally asks questions and tips very well. 

It’s splendid, frankly.

She doesn’t mind being overlooked, it gives her more time to do the important things, like go for dinner, or feed the ducks, or pour over that new leather-bound book of Tennyson with Cokeworth etchings that she procured on an electronic sort of auction site (with Crowley leaning over her shoulder the entire time, cackling with annoyance and occasionally delight. Apparently pop-up windows were Crowley’s doing in the nineties, though - when Aziraphale thinks back to Crowley’s hair at the time, she’s surprised they both haven’t repressed the entire decade. 

“No, no, nothing’s happened to Princess Kate, just exit – no, there, click up there - “

“But that looked serious.” 

Aziraphale secretly adores the way Crowley’s fond irritation hisses up against her neck, the way she scoffs in disbelief and runs her hands through her hair. There's still something of the desert caught in that shock of red, and when she’s close enough Aziraphale feels like she’s been flung back in time thousands of years, feels sunlight hot on her face and Crowley's beautiful (never unremarkable) body there beside her, tall and jagged-edged and black as the devil.

“Oh, look, I’ve won a prize!”

“For Satan’s sake, Aziraphale-”

“I’m not going to learn anything if you just take the clicker away.”

“It’s not a - you know, nevermind. Call it whatever you bloody want but please stop typing in  _ your credit card information _ -”)

Crowley’s form is more shifting, changes a bit every few centuries or so, but Aziraphale’s body has remained constant. She just can’t imagine doing any better. Besides, she knows what it likes now, and it’s taken no small amount of research to figure that out. Aziraphale has refined a long list of Things Her Body Likes over years and years of intensive study (she is a scientist and a scholar, ink-stained and stoop-shouldered and wholly committed to her purpose). 

Food, for one thing (and not just fine dining either. Of course she won’t say no to a lobster risotto or a lamb ragu with a bit of mint, but street food is a world of delight all its own:  muu daet diao from that little stall in Bangkok,  tantuni (highly spiced) from the Turkish foodtruck that occasionally shows up at the Brick Lane Market , or grilled-cheese with enough grease to soak through the napkin - her appreciation for food is wide and generous.)

Wine is on the list as well (occasionally very good port, or cognac, or sherry in a pinch. Once, at Crowley’s suggestion, tequila! She’ll never tell Crowley, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable suggestion. Aziraphale got to study Crowley’s ridiculously pickled face every time she took a bite of lime, as well as her tongue darting out to do dangerous things to the salt on her wrist. The first time Aziraphale noticed it, that bit of pink at the edge of Crowley’s dark lips, she felt the burn of feathers against her shoulder-blades, her wings longing to unfold and dance through the crackling air.

There has been no tequila since. Probably wise.)

Music: the first time she heard a lyre being played, goosebumps sprung up on her arms. It was an unexpectedly visceral reaction, something she had not known her body could do. Now she is more prepared for it, will have full-body shivering responses to the vibration of violin strings, or a particular note in an aria, or the low, electric voice of Mama Cass (whatever Crowley thinks, Aziraphale’s musical tastes haven’t stayed entirely out of the 20th century; it’s not her fault that anything made after 1968 was derivative.)

Hot water: oh, we can’t forget that. It used to be harder to come by in those early centuries, but in the past hundred or so years Aziraphale’s gotten frightfully used to it. Showers are a special kind of invigorating, and Aziraphale is equally taken with baths. Any sort of hygienic maintenance could be accomplished with a simple miracle, but bathing is far more enjoyable. The edges of Aziraphale’s tub are packed with bottles of various oils, scents, bubbles. Really, what’s the point of having skin if you aren’t going to give it a good soak now and then?

And then there are those pleasurable pursuits that often require a bit of…company.

They’re on the list too.

Aziraphale is well-acquainted with the many carnal delights that fascinate the authors of some of her favourite works of literature. Not that she’s made a habit of it or anything (and it’s been quite some time since her last liaison) but she’s had several millennia of time on her hands - 

No pun intended there (though she has tried that as well.) 

She just wanted to know what all the fuss was about, wanted to know what Crowley was getting up to whenever her temptations ran in that direction or someone struck her fancy (apparently there have been several nuns, surprising absolutely no one).

And sometimes, lately - when Aziraphale is alone - 

Well, she can’t be held responsible for the sort of imagery her mind dreams up in those rare occasions she treats her body gently (or roughly, depending on her mood). If sometimes she imagines fine red hair slipping between her fingers, or held fast in her fist. 

_ (The things I would do to you - _

_ If you wanted them. If you wanted me. If you asked.) _

She  _ really does _ try not to think about her friend during those desperate times. It seems vaguely distasteful.

But Aziraphale is out of practice at not thinking about Crowley. 

(They talk about it the night Crowley tells her about the Antichrist. Trade reasons to save the world back and forth like playing-cards while becoming increasingly too drunk to function: old bookshops. Stephen Sondheim, sloths.

“Love, I suppose,” Aziraphale says for absolutely no reason, none at all.

Crowley chokes on her wine. “Oh?” she says, with a charred-black voice. “Been in love have you?”

“I didn’t mean - I meant love generally. Between all people, you know,  _ mankind.  _ Not between me and - and - and -“ She is a skipping record, might repeat ‘and’ over and over again until Armageddon happens. “Why, have  _ you _ ?”

Crowley doesn’t say a word. Aziraphale tries to drink more wine without choking on it and promptly fails. Sometimes she is deadly certain that the demon knows exactly what she’s thinking. How could Crowley not? Aziraphale’s face is too bloody expressive and is always fully two steps ahead of her brain - right in sync with her terrible and unnecessary heart.

“Surprised at you, angel,” Crowley says at long last. “Thinking a demon could feel love.”

Aziraphale rolls her eyes even as her chest caves with relief.  _ _ “ _ Crowley _ \- my dear, that’s not fair.”

“More your side’s thing, innit?”

“Oh, for - dogs, then.” Aziraphale changes the subject uncomfortably, and Crowley looks disgusted.

“You’ve never even had a dog.”

“I’ve met them! Very friendly. Darling little chaps.”

“A dog would tear all your lovely books to shreds. Would chew right down the spines of ‘em.”

“They never would.”

“Hell’s got dogs, angel. Or whatsit -  _ hounds _ . We’ve got hounds. Great slathering things. Don’t think you’d like them as much.”

“Well, let us hope I never meet one.” Just keep the conversation going, steer it toward calmer waters where you never have to discuss anything about love ever again.  _ Quickly, quickly, before you drown _ . “Suppose you’re a cat person, then.”)

In her list of ‘Things Her Body Likes,’ Aziraphale would not add love. She might have at one point, a fanciful sort of gesture, but now that she’s more experienced she is crossing it out (thick, frantic strokes of black pen.)

Love is not a pleasure. 

It is not a delight either, whatever the  _ Caoineadh  _ said.

This discovery should not have been as staggering as it was. Aziraphale should have seen it coming. All the poets of her acquaintance wasted away from the feeling in one form or another, and there’s no shortage of literary lamentations for (and from) the broken-hearted. 

Looking back through history, Aziraphale’s rather afraid love might be a terminal sort of thing - though of course it won’t be in her case. More’s the pity. If it isn’t going to kill her, that means she has to live with it.

But she can. She has. She will.

(“We’d be godmothers,” Crowley says later, after they’ve sobered up enough to form words again. 

“Godmothers,” Aziraphale says, feeling her too expressive face smile helplessly.

“Maybe just you should be the godmother. Fairy godmother, right? I’ll be more like his - vodka aunt.”

Aziraphale laughs, hopes it’s enough to disguise the waves of anxiety radiating off her skin like ultraviolet.

“Well,” she says. “I’ll be damned.”

“It’s not that bad when you get used to it.”)

And Aziraphale tells herself for the hundredth time that that’s exactly what she’ll do. She’ll get used to it. Get used to this feeling until it’s nothing more than an old war wound, a phantom pain. 

She’ll have all the time in the world to do so, as long as the, er, world doesn’t end. 

(Unfortunately enough for the two of them, the world nearly does.)

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t have a side anymore.” Crowley swallows, and that sound is like a diamond dropping into a well. “Neither of us do. We’re on our own side.”
> 
> And after everything that happened - Crowley may be right. 
> 
> So Aziraphale stays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my lovely beta @ineffably-effable on Tumblr, an absolutely gorgeous writer who is far too patient with my anxious self.
> 
> I'm repurposing some book lore around Crowley's lost century for this chapter. Thank you to everyone who has read this so far, has been so kind and lovely, and is willing to wait for Chapter 3 when I swear this fic will earn its rating.

**Cold Open:**

_ The Angel of the Eastern Gate has cut her hair shorter since the last time Crowley saw her. It frames her face in terribly pale curls, curls the colour of chalk (Crowley stares. Can’t stop staring.) _

_ It’s completely bloody unfair. _

_ Equally bloody unfair is that Crowley knows exactly where to find her, from the moment she wakes up. _

_ It used to be a trick she could do if she wanted (and she didn’t. Often.) She could reach out and feel Aziraphale’s pull from whatever corner of the globe she’d gone off to, usually on some reckless food-based errand but occasionally for her actual bleeding job. _

_ But on this occasion, Crowley wakes after forty-eight years of sleeping in a pocket bedroom in Islington - and with a tug somewhere in her ribcage knows Aziraphale is taking tea only a few blocks away. _

_ She considers. _

_ She’s still feeling all soft and soporific, was just going to grab a cup of tea and use the facilities before getting a few more decades shut-eye (she’d been having the loveliest dream, is hoping she’ll fall right back into it. She doesn’t need to dream, but she enjoys it nonetheless. In this one she was at a picnic somewhere. She was lying down, she can remember that. The sun was too bright in her face and the grass was damp against her cheek and Aziraphale kept holding a hand up, blocking out the worst of the light from Crowley’s naked jaundiced eyes -) _

_ She thinks it was Aziraphale, anyway. Could very well have been some other bloody angel. Difficult to tell them apart. _

_ Right. _

_ She paints her lips dark red before she leaves, and doesn’t look too long at her motivations there. She’s a busy demon, doesn’t have time for naval-gazing (don’t think about it, don’t, and then it won’t be true.) _

_ When she gets to the tea shop (and she doesn’t rush there, doesn’t break a sweat) she sees the angel seated at a table with her nose in a book and her pale hair cut short. She’s wearing some bizarre white shawl over a dress with frankly massive sleeves. Satan save us, is that what’s in fashion these days? How does she lift her arms in those things? _

_ The angel tugs on a stray curl, frowning at the page in front of her, and Crowley feels something similar to what drinking Holy Water must feel like (the most divine self-destruction is still self-destruction). _

_ “Oh,” Aziraphale says as she looks up from her book and her tea and what might be tiramisu. _

_ “Yes, oh,” Crowley says, sweeping in and taking a seat across from her. (The argument about Holy Water is the reason Crowley stormed off for her decades long nap/snit. Best not use it for any poetic comparisons just yet. Put it away.) _

_ “I thought you were - sleeping through this century.” _

_ “I was, in fact. What year is it?” _

_ “1847.” Aziraphale’s tone is a bit snappish. Crowley can’t guess why. It isn’t like Crowley didn’t tell her she was going off to sleep for an indefinite amount of time. Aziraphale’s fine, clearly. Look at her, look how fine she is. _

_ The wait-staff pour Crowley a cup of tea with curious, sidelong eyes and she sips it loudly. It’s much too hot, and she tries not to draw her lips back, not to hiss in panic. Aziraphale frowns again, but it’s still the same frown Crowley remembers from the Wall and the Garden - too damn fetching by half, and awful to look at now that Crowley hasn’t seen it for so long. When they’re around each other a lot, Crowley gets accustomed to Aziraphale’s Looks, but when it has been awhile, that familiarity is - gutting, really. _

_ “What are you reading?” she asks instead of following that thought any further. _

_ “Something new. It’s -“ _

_ Crowley has already grabbed the book, is skimming through its delicate pages, stopping whenever she catches an interesting or salacious turn of phrase. _

_ “It’s wonderful.” Aziraphale smiles (at last, at last.) Crowley doesn’t need to look up to see it; she can hear the smile in the angel’s voice. She’s trying not to imagine it in too much detail when her eyes get caught on a line (“I have a strange feeling with regard to you, as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you -”) _

_ She slams the book shut. _

_ “Seems a bit - gothic for your tastes.” Crowley can feel her damnable heart pounding. The useless organ doesn’t even need to be there, which makes the whole thing worse. She has half a mind to find this author and tempt her into a laudanum addiction or something, because - because - _

_ (Crowley knew where Aziraphale was upon waking.) _

_ “They’re a family of writers, you know. Sisters! This is the eldest - pity they have to write under men’s names. All extremely talented, not getting half as much recognition as they deserve.” _

_ “Oh.” _

_ “It’s simply unfair. I wish I could assist, but I’m - a bit overdrawn on miracles this century.” _

_ “You are? What have you been up to? And what is going on with those sleeves? Are you smuggling - orphaned children in them?” (Did you miss me? No, stupid question, you couldn’t have. What sort of angel misses a demon?) _

_ “Oh, stop.” Aziraphale looks cross but fond, and Crowley hates it. “They’re gigot sleeves, it’s the latest thing.” _

_ Crowley could ask the question. She could tell Aziraphale about her bloody dreams, about the halo of curls leaning over her, and the smell of the grass and struck matches and sunlight - _

_ “I can do that one,” she says instead. “It’s no trouble.” _

_ “Really?” _

_ “You want all of the sisters, or just this one?” _

_ The smile on Aziraphale’s face is like warm honey, and it knocks Crowley back a bit. Good job she’s sitting down. _

_ “Oh, all of them! If you don’t mind. They’re exceedingly talented in different ways. Haven’t read much of Anne but - are you quite certain?” _

_ “It will cause some sort of vexation to someone. Women writing. You know.” _

_ “ _ _ Vexing that sort of person would surely be considered the work of my side,” Aziraphale says decisively. _

_ “Think it falls under both our purviews then.” _

_ “And it won’t put you out?” _

_ “ _ _ Of course not. Anything for you, angel.” She doesn’t mean to say it, but she says it out of habit. Anything for you, anything for you - idiot. It must be so incredibly obvious to everyone in the tea shop. “There, it’s done. Give ‘em a year to really take off once the public gets used to the nom-de-plume business.” _

_ “Well.” Aziraphale’s still smiling but her eyes are a bit troubled, not that blue-sky-summer-day colour that Crowley usually feels safe enough to swim in. A different sort of colour. An uneasy sort of sea. “I do - I am grateful.” _

_ Crowley shrugs. She watches a forkful of cake and cream disappear into Aziraphale’s closed lips, only to be pulled back clean. Crowley doesn’t often eat, doesn’t need to, but sometimes - she feels hungry. _

_ “Are you all right?” _

_ “Course I am.” Crowley hasn’t been close enough to smell Aziraphale’s skin for almost fifty years. She wonders if she smells like she did in that dream. She wonders if Aziraphale would hold up a wing to keep her out of the rain. “Now your little miracle’s taken care of, I’m going back to sleep.” _

_ “You can’t – really?” _

_ May as bloody well, Crowley thinks. _ _ “Yeah I was having a lovely dream about - Sappho. You remember those parties she used to have? The girls and the music and all that boiled wine - you ever make it out to those?” _

_ “Once or - twice.” _

_ “Hoping I can pick up where I left off.” She stands, unsteady. “Just got up to stretch and use the loo, really.” _

_ “Right.” The angel with her eyes the colour of wisteria, the angel with her mouth like a slice of lemon and hair that makes Crowley’s fists clench. “Well, I- I hope -“ _

_ “What?” Crowley says, a bit too sharply. “What do you hope?” _

_ Aziraphale doesn’t speak for a long moment. Crowley is looming over her, and Aziraphale is looking up with eyes gone wide (probably matching the expressions of the other patrons in the tea room.) _

_ “I hope - you sleep well.” _

_ Crowley exhales, through her nostrils. “Yeah. All right. Have a good - rest of the century.” _

_ If there was any justice there’d be a storm brewing as Crowley heads back to Islington. She wants the sky to burn ash grey and the wind to sting like a yellowjacket’s kiss. _

_ Unfortunately the sky stays blue and cloudless. A beautifully bland summer day. Completely bloody unfair (Crowley sleeps for another thirty-seven years; she wakes with the taste of honey in her mouth, and an awful tugging sensation somewhere in her ribcage.) _

  1. **_plum_**

So the world doesn’t end.

It’s a near thing, but at the end of the day Aziraphale is back in her lovely body, sitting at a bus stop, trading swigs of a very nice _ Primitivo _ (the mouth of which is warm when Aziraphale raises it to her lips. Maybe it tastes a bit like Crowley’s would. Possibly. She wouldn’t know.) 

She hands the sword back to the delivery man, feels its heavy handle slide from her grasp, and then (like steel slicing through her palm) Crowley says:

“You can stay at my place. If you like.”

(_ If you like, if you like _.) 

Aziraphale - doesn’t know what to say. So she falls back on routine, on habit, on sheer rote memory: 

“I don’t think my side would like that.”

“You don’t have a side anymore.” Crowley swallows, and that sound is like a diamond dropping into a well. “Neither of us do. We’re on our own side.”

And after everything that happened today - Crowley may be right. 

So Aziraphale stays.

The flat is wholly dark when they get there, but Aziraphale has been by enough times to know the general shape of things. She toes off her leather brogues, hangs her coat on the rack beside a shapeless mass of black leather and studs that she certainly cannot remember Crowley ever wearing (and she _would_ _absolutely_ have remembered something like that.) Crowley watches her in silence, hands fluttering idly every now and then like she wants to help but doesn’t know how. 

It’s awkward and quiet, like a terrible ballet, and Aziraphale can’t say why. Whatever happened this afternoon (and however much Aziraphale might wish it) nothing’s changed between Crowley and herself. Armageddon has been delayed somewhat, but she and Crowley are exactly what they were to each other before they spectacularly betrayed their employers in a spectacularly public fashion.

Oh, they are both going to suffer for this. But not tonight.

Not yet.

“Are you - do you want anything?” Crowley is moving toward the kitchen (never used except to store alcohol and stemware.) “Something to eat? Or drink? Or -”

Aziraphale sits down in a very stiff armchair. Her hands are unsteady and she lets out a shallow, slightly hysterical laugh.

“Angel?”

“No, it’s - nothing. Nothing. I’m quite - a drink, yes. Yes, thank you.”

Crowley studies her for a few moments more before disappearing into the kitchen. When she comes back, she has a round bottle of something clear, and two small glasses. She fills Aziraphale’s glass before filling her own, and then sprawls like calligraphy over the couch.

Aziraphale tries not to stare. Anyway, she doesn’t need to. The shape of Crowley, the edges are already carved on Aziraphale’s scapula, ulna, the bones of her wrist.

Instead she nods in thanks. She looks down at her drink, sips - oh _God_ _ ’s sake _ -

“This - is _ awful _,” she chokes out, and it seems to amuse Crowley well enough, so that’s something. “What is this?”

“Slivovitz.” Crowley throws back the contents of her own glass like it’s water, and starts to refill it. “Plum brandy. _ Come on _, you remember -“

“I certainly do not.”

Whatever expression she makes has Crowley snorting out a laugh, and Aziraphale once again curses the muscles of her face, all of her obvious tells. The whole world can read what she’s thinking, it’s probably clear from space. Crowley, on the other hand, is all smokey lips and dark glasses.

Aziraphale has to decipher her heart with crumbs.

“Bulgaria. Fourteen-something-er-other. The monks. You _ do _, you must -“

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, because suddenly she does. “We were in that forest.”

“Yesssss.” Crowley hisses and that shouldn’t make Aziraphale’s breath catch, but it does. “You remember. The liquor wasn’t half-bad, but Zograf monks are the worst, the absolute worst. The singing? Your side can bloody well have them.”

Then Crowley realizes what she’s said, and snaps her mouth shut. She takes a sip of her drink, doesn’t wince. Doesn’t flinch.

“We don’t have sides anymore.” Aziraphale has to say it, has to repeat Crowley’s words back to her. She has to say it to see if she can (as soon as the words are out of her throat, the floorboards start tilting beneath her feet. Six thousand years, six thousand years, and now nothing, _ nothing _ \- would the Almighty even hear her voice anymore, would anyone -)

“Angel.” Crowley is leaning forward, elbows on her knees and dark-glassed eyes on Aziraphale’s face. “Breathe.”

“I shouldn’t - need to,” Aziraphale says.

“Right. Well, drink then,” and that seems like the most reasonable suggestion ever so Aziraphale squeezes her eyes shut and tips the glass of slivovitz down her throat. It burns, it burns, and her veins run scalding with it. Good. Everything else is burning right now, she may as well light herself on fire too.

Reluctantly, she breathes.

Behind her eyelids she sees the feathers of Death’s wide wings, a darkness so absolute it stops her heart. She sees Crowley falling to the ground with a scream, Crowley writhing with the force of Satan’s anger as the earth shakes, as everything shakes -

The glug of alcohol makes Aziraphale snap her eyes open. She looks up to see Crowley refilling both their empty glasses. Thank God for that.

“It’ll grow on you.” Crowley sits down again, rests her head on the back of the sofa. “Like Bulgaria. Just takes some time.”

“I - suppose.” Aziraphale has another sip, on the fine edge of utterly unhinged. 

It could have all gone so much worse. She should be giddy with gratitude. She should be pleased, celebratory. But she isn’t, she’s utterly panicked. If she were at her shop she would just bury herself in Yeats or Frost (or possibly some Sondheim) but that’s gone now, all her beautiful pages reduced to scattered ashes. At least there’s this terrible alcohol (and Crowley, though the latter only makes her feel restless. Aziraphale fumbles with the glass in her hands as if she’s never held one before.) 

When she looks up, and Crowley’s watching her.

So she looks down.

“You did well today,” Aziraphale says to her glass of plum brandy. Her tongue tastes like boiling water. 

“So did you. Didn’t even need to kill any kids.” It’s said quite off-handedly but it still feels like a slap.

“Well.” Aziraphale cannot quite reconcile how close that had been. For all her insistence on being ‘the nice one’ there was a moment there, with Shadwell’s ridiculous weapon, that she thought - _ if this is the only way _ \- “I. That is -”

It had just been a moment. But surely your character is measured by what you do at your most desperate (and Aziraphale had been a warrior once. She doesn’t want to be a warrior anymore, doesn’t want to remember the salt-hot taste of blood against her tongue. She wants to be soft. She wants to be the nice one. She wants -)

“I can see you having a crisis in front of my bloody eyes,” Crowley mutters. “I shouldn’t have said it. We both of us did the best we could, all right?”

Over the top of Crowley’s sunglasses, Aziraphale can see her fine eyebrows pull together with worry.

“The best we could.” Aziraphale swallows. “Not so sure about that.”

“_ I _ am.” 

“You can say that, but -” 

“Angel.”

Crowley’s tone is so certain that there’s no room for argument. Aziraphale opens her mouth to respond but then just - leaves it open. Watches Crowley from across the room, wishing she could see her eyes.

And then like a miracle, Crowley takes her glasses off.

Folds them, hangs them off the front pocket of her black button-up. Blinks warm amber at Aziraphale, a colour that spills through the darkness.

“I am. I’m sure.”

Aziraphale - doesn’t know what to say. So she tosses the rest of her drink back before she can think better of it. Gasps, wipes her stinging mouth on the back of her hand.

“I don’t know how much it mattered in the end. It was always about the boy, wasn’t it? I don’t believe anyone else could have stopped it.”

“Ha! Well, I like _ that _. Only paused time, didn’t I? But no, no, the boy, sure -”

It makes Aziraphale laugh, which makes Crowley smile, which does lovely things to the light in the room but terrible things to Aziraphale’s heart.

She holds out her empty glass. Crowley fills it.

So it goes.

At some point the contents of the bottle starts to drop substantially. Crowley is tilting to one side on the couch, and Aziraphale is sliding partly out of her chair, so they call it a night. Crowley goes off to scrounge in her room for an extra blanket (though Aziraphale assures her she won’t need it, she’s not going to sleep. Apparently “it’s the principle of the thing, it’s - you gotta have a blanket or else, else what kind of host am I? Don’t answer that, I see your look -”)

Aziraphale won’t even hear of taking Crowley’s bed. She’ll be up most of the night anyway, it would be pointless. Thankfully, Crowley doesn’t suggest it.

“Here we are,” Crowley emerges from her bedroom with an odd, patchwork-y blanket in her hands. “Forgot about this one. Was using it over the window, gets a bit chilly in -”

She almost runs into Aziraphale, who is waiting in the hallway and wishing she had anywhere to retreat to, even if it wasn’t a bookshop.

“Oh.” Crowley places the blanket in Aziraphale’s hands. It’s cool to the touch, smells like winter and glass.

Crowley should really think about getting her windows re-sealed. Aziraphale knows how cold it can get at night.

“Thanks. That's - lovely."

“Yeah. No trouble.” Crowley is silhouetted against the lamplight coming from her bedroom, but her silhouette isn’t black. No, it’s a deep purple, like a bruise or a violet. “Sure you’ll - be all right out here?”

“Of course. I doubt I’ll sleep much.”

“And you’ll shout if you need anything? Or if you want something, or -”

“Heavens, I’m an angel. If there’s anything I need, I'll -” 

Aziraphale goes silent as Crowley reaches out. Touches her shoulder with one pale hand. Doesn’t - doesn’t stop touching it.

“_ I couldn’t find you _.” 

The heat of her hand is burning a hole through Aziraphale’s silk blouse. Aziraphale thinks she can smell smoke.

“Crowley?” she chokes out after a moment too long.

“I couldn’t -”

“But _ I _ found you. So it’s - all right.”

Crowley snatches her hand back, pressing it somewhere against her side, like she’s feeling for a broken rib.

“Sorry, right. Right.” She shakes her head, shaking the moment off. “Been a long day. The longest day.”

“It - yes. It rather has.” Someone say this for me, Aziraphale prays silently, before remembering that quite possibly no one up there hears her voice anymore. She’ll pray to a different God then, and its name is slivovitz. “No matter what happens tomorrow -“ And something will happen, they won’t walk away from this. They’d never be allowed. “Darling, you should know -”

Aziraphale thinks back to Crowley’s sharp little ‘nice knowing you’ as the earth was splitting open. Wishes she had said something in kind. She tries it out now, silently: _ It was nice knowing you _. 

_ (Knowing you was so nice, my darling, so nice it felt like a temptation. Like a sin. Like something an angel shouldn’t get to have because it might make her choose sides. _

_ It might make her fall.) _

“Um, I’ll just, get - do y’need an extra - pillow, er -” Crowley stammers, fidgets, taps long fingers against the doorframe.

“You were the_ best _ part of it _ . _” The words come out very quickly, barely decipherable, before Aziraphale can lose her nerve.

Crowley’s fidgeting stops. She goes very, very still, staring down at her hand on the doorframe. 

“I’m sure I wasn’t as much fun as all that.” Crowley’s hand tightens. There’s the anxious creak of wood.

“A wily adversary,” Aziraphale’s vision swims slightly and she isn’t sure why. Crying is not a thing she does, not a thing she needs to do. “Kept me on my toes.”

Crowley looks up, eyes wide and gold. She isn’t smiling, but the corner of her mouth twitches.

Aziraphale - stares. Can’t stop staring.

They look at each other in the darkness, just the distance of a step separating them. Aziraphale could reach her hand out and touch Crowley if she wanted. Aziraphale could take a step closer and be right in her personal space, right in the doorway of her bedroom, and Aziraphale burns righteous as a flaming sword, and she aches like a Holy War, and she wants - 

“What about crêpes then?”

It startles a laugh out of her. “Also very good. You were better.”

“Such an awful liar.” Crowley rolls her eyes, but the look is so fond that it hurts, holds a knife against Aziraphale’s chest and pushes inwards just slightly. “Good night then, angel.”

"Good night."

Crowley takes a step back and then - pauses. That moment is enough to discorporate Aziraphale once again, the lurch of fear and wonder and relief that rattles up through her ribcage, the _ what, WHAT IS IT, _ w _ hat are you going to tell me? _(You could say anything darling, anything, please -)

But Crowley just nods tightly. Ducks her head, weaves a bit as she turns and walks away. Aziraphale watches her until the door closes between them. Watches her until she can’t.

She needs to lie down.

Crowley’s couch is not as comfortable as the lovely one that was in the bookshop, and Aziraphale may not intend to sleep, but she can at least make an effort. There’s enough alcohol in her system that she can see the benefit of lying down on any horizontal surface available. She pulls the blanket up over her legs, stares at the cavernous ceiling above her. Slivovitz runs warm fingers down her arms and up over her ribs.

Hours pass. Shadows crawl over the harsh planes of Crowley’s house. Aziraphale lies awake, watches them.

Somewhere, behind a door, Crowley is sleeping. Possibly. Somewhere in the very next room, Crowley’s eyes might be closed, her head tipped back and throat exposed. Somewhere close -

It has been a long bloody day, and Aziraphale lost her body and lost her home and lost any idea of her purpose in this world.

And despite all of that, she's still here.

She could get up, couldn’t she. She could take the eight steps to Crowley’s bedroom, she could knock on the door. Say - say what exactly? 

(“_ I couldn’t sleep _.”)

And then Crowley would sit up, sleep rumpled and smudge-eyed. Maybe her hair would be all pressed flat against one side of her head, maybe her mouth would be naked for the first time in centuries.

“All right, angel,” Crowley would say, because everything was all right where Aziraphale was concerned. Everything was unflinchingly generous - whatever Aziraphale needed, whenever she wanted. “You hungry? You want - to talk?”

“No,” Aziraphale might say, and she might take the two additional steps across Crowley’s room to the bed where the sheets would smell like her, she might put one knee up onto the mattress, then the other, she might reach out -

But Aziraphale won’t do that. 

She can’t even imagine it (_ lies, lies, _ she absolutely can. Crowley’s hair would slide like wheat between her fingers, Crowley’s mouth would be open and and hot and wet as Aziraphale pressed her against the pillows, gasping “please, just let me, please -“)

Stop it.

It’s - ridiculous, and she knows it (she can’t stop knowing it now, just because the world isn’t ending).

Aziraphale decides to give up sleep as a bad job. It isn’t going to happen and perhaps Crowley has a library somewhere that she can explore. The house is all eerie edges in the darkness, but Aziraphale doesn’t need much light to see, and she wanders through the shadows (in the opposite direction of Crowley’s room, of course. Best not risk it.)

She walks silently through the mostly empty kitchen, then follows a long corridor to - surprisingly enough - a room full of plants. Lush and verdant, radiating health.

And something else.

As Aziraphale approaches, it seems the plants are trembling slightly. For all that she can sense love, she can sense fear as well.

That’s certainly - interesting.

She traces one hand over a flat, green leaf, humming quietly to herself, like she’s trying to calm a stray cat (there was one that used to hang around the shop a bit, and Aziraphale was convinced that with the right amount of murmuring she could one day get close enough to give it a scratch behind the ear. She’d left a bowl of nibbles outside her door a couple times but didn’t continue after she found a very large rat quite enjoying itself the next morning.) 

Now she walks slowly through Crowley’s little garden. Some of the plants remind her, strangely enough, of her friend. The spiky, sharp-edges. That rattle of nerves. Aziraphale pets what might be a small fig tree like she would pet the angle of Crowley’s shoulder blades, her knife-straight jawline, her lightning strike of hair -

“That’s a very good plant,” Aziraphale murmurs, feeling a bit silly but not silly enough to stop. She’s tactile and sentimental, and it’s been a long bloody day.

The plants tremble. 

“Oh hush now. There. There. You’re all right.”

She decides to sit down, not really enjoying the sad plants and the dark room, but feeling a bit bad about leaving them all alone in such a state. She leans back against the wall, stretches her legs out in front of her. 

She thinks about Agnes’ prophecy, the one still folded in the pocket of her jacket: **choose your faces wisely, **it said. Whatever did it mean?

All around her, the plants tremble.

“For Heaven’s sake.” Aziraphale sighs. “I’m not going to -” She has an idea. It's a foolish one, but good ideas are a bit thin on the ground these days. Her voice is nothing more than ordinary, but she sings anyway. There's only plants around to hear her. “_ Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper ‘I love you. _”

She hopes Crowley is sleeping deeply enough not to be woken by the sound.

She wonders if Crowley is dreaming. 

Wonders what she’s dreaming about. 

“_ Dream a little dream of me,” _Aziraphale sings (while behind her an amaryllis plant flowers for the first time in thirty eight-years.)

*

There have been so many ways, over the years, that it could have happened. 

This is a very human thing to consider. That’s a bit concerning. When you’re Divine, you know that there’s a plan of some kind, that things are working out the way they ought. That the Almighty has some semblance of control over the steps you take, and that those steps are in service of a higher purpose. 

But humans don't always know this. And once you spend enough time around them, you start to pick up a few things. Start to - doubt. Start to think - well, what if? What if things had been different? 

So how could it have happened -just for the sake of discussion? (Even though it didn’t. And wouldn't have.) 

Perhaps - in France.

Crowley’s rescue effort was certainly romantic enough. After they made their miraculous escape, Aziraphale ate crepes with brandy and oranges and Crowley watched her in that ridiculous, black outfit of hers and for a moment Aziraphale thought - thought that maybe she was being watched in a certain way. 

In those moments she always tried to remind herself that this was just Crowley's nature (it’s a Tempting thing. Of course it is. Crowley looks this way at everyone. Crowley provokes this kind of wine and honey’d reaction from - everyone.)

But maybe - if things had gone differently - Crowley might have taken her back to England. Where was Aziraphale staying then - the house in Sussex? Offering Crowley a room for the night would have been the least she could do, particularly given how fond Crowley was of sleeping. How exhausted she must have been after all those miracles.

So Aziraphale might have invited her in. Had the housekeeper make her tea - no, bring them wine - and then sent Mrs. Ashcroft away for the night. They might have sat together in the parlour, with the fireplace crackling away beside them until the lateness of the hour (and the alcohol) went to both their heads. Then perhaps Crowley would have bid Aziraphale goodnight, would have turned to seek her rooms, and then would have - stopped. 

(She did the same thing after the world didn’t end. But this story is Aziraphale’s, and it goes a bit differently. You might know the lyrics but the melody is much prettier.)

Crowley might have turned back then, in Aziraphale's house in Sussex. Aziraphale would have seen the Tempting in her eyes, the way she often did, but this time she would give into it. She would tilt her head back to be kissed, she would let Crowley’s ember and ashes mouth slide against her own, she would say “yes, my darling,” or “however can I thank you” (that is a bit ridiculous, but this story is Aziraphale’s, she can think what she likes.) 

It didn’t happen like this, of course not. But it might have.

After the church and the books, it might have happened too. 

Crowley (or Antonia now, what a name) placed the suitcase in Aziraphale’s hand and Aziraphale still remembers how she felt a great crash of sound moving over her, raising goosebumps on her skin like she was listening to a symphony, even though the world was silent and her ears were still ringing from the bomb.

After Crowley gave her a lift home, Aziraphale could have said “thank you.” Could have said “the books - they mean so much. You didn’t have to.”

“It was nothing, angel. Don’t think on it.”

“But - it wasn’t nothing. It was something -“ Breathe, swallow. “- rather extraordinary.”

Then - then - Aziraphale might have said, “Like you,” and watched Crowley’s lips press silently together, Crowley’s hands clench on the steering wheel once, fingers white as bones.

“_ You’re _ extraordinary.” Aziraphale would have had to repeat herself, had to make sure that Crowley got the point she was circling, and Crowley might have said, “Aziraphale-“ in a voice that sounded broken, and Aziraphale might have leaned in then (shaking so much her teeth chattered) and kissed her. 

Kissed her, kissed her, opened her mouth with a gasp as Crowley started to kiss her back, hands clenched on Aziraphale’s jacket, pulling her forward into a kiss that suddenly had sharp edges.

“Angel,” Crowley might have husked against her mouth, “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

And Aziraphale would - melt against the passenger seat of the Bentley, Crowley pressing her down, down and down, teeth against her throat -

(It might have happened like that. Oh God - if it had -)

Or maybe that time at the tea shop, when Crowley woke up from her decades-long nap. Aziraphale still remembers that, that oddly electric conversation they had, as if they were both saying things in code that neither could quite understand. 

“Well, I - I hope -“

“What?” Crowley had asked then. “What do you hope?”

Aziraphale could have said: “I hope you know how I missed you. How I wanted to find you, watch you sleep, card my hand through your hair (so softly, not enough to wake you, if my fingers caught in a tangle I’d be gentle, you wouldn’t even notice.)”

Or Aziraphale could have said: “I hope you know how good you are. How I realize that. These little miracles, they all add up, and I see you, and I know what you’ve done, and it matters. And darling - _ I have absolutely no idea how to say this _, but please please hear what I'm saying, please don't make me put this into words, please just know somehow that I -”

But she didn’t say that. She couldn't have. She’s an angel and Crowley is a demon. That sort of thing is simply untenable. Impossible (and Heaven's sake - what would Crowley think? There would be no recovery from that sort of humiliation.)

Crowley asked her to run off to the stars once, and Aziraphale said no. She still can’t quite explain why. It had seemed so - unexpected, so sudden and unnecessary. She had just assumed that the world could still be saved, that she could go on as she always had, with her books and her wine and her red-jasper haired friend. They didn’t need (or hadn’t yet needed) to do anything quite so - _ rash. _

If given the question again (and she never will be, Aziraphale suspects) she might say ‘yes.’ 

_ Yes. _

What an extraordinarily simple word, and yet sometimes when she’s around Crowley it seems like a tooth that won’t come loose. 

(It could have happened then, as well. Crowley shouting from her car, Aziraphale pale and tight-lipped in front of the book shop. If Aziraphale had been a bit braver, or a bit less brave, they might be orbiting each other in Alpha Centauri, a binary star held tight in the space between two clasped hands.)

There are so many ways it could have happened.

So many ways it didn’t. 

And sometimes, Aziraphale can see all of them, all those lost moments, ground into fragments and scattered across the sky like constellations.

She doesn't feel like a warrior then. Can't believe she ever was one when she's too frightened to even open her mouth.

_Yes_, she could have said. _Yes._

Crowley will never hear her, but Aziraphale is saying it now.   



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get decidedly Hollywood here. Prepare for some unexpected Love Confessions (regrettably, no mad chases to the airport, but perhaps in my next fic.)
> 
> As ever, thank you to my brilliant long-suffering beta @ineffably-effable (on Tumblr) who did not know what they were getting themselves in to when they slid into my DMs with a picture of Olivia Colman. You made this story so much better than it ever would have been. Hope it was worth the hassle; I owe you several first borns. 
> 
> And thank you to @drawlight, pine-tree-in-sunglasses, for the encouragement, kindness, and being the hype-man I do not deserve.

**Cold Open:**

_ The Angel of the Eastern Gate has hair that is swimming in pink light, the colour of a sunrise. She is sitting in the Bentley, close enough to touch but buttoned up to her throat, and so beautiful that Crowley has to - _

_ “You go too fast for me, Crowley.” _

_ Right. _

_ Crowley doesn’t have a response to that besides – nodding. _

_ There’s nothing – there’s no argument here. _

_ The angel said it, and feels it, and Crowley would cut her wings off rather than press the point further, rather than say “it’s just a bloody lift, it’s nothing, less than nothing -” _

_ So she just. Nods. Pulls the passenger door shut after Aziraphale leaves. Clenches her jaw until she feels her molars cracking. _

_ She drives off slowly, in a vague sort of daze. She hadn’t been asking – what had she been asking? Just to do the angel a favour, not for a ring or a promise or any of that human rubbish. To drop Aziraphale off somewhere, for Satan’s sake. And then that corkscrew-tight menace had to go and make it about something else, had to make it – make it something – _

_ Important. _

_ Like Crowley hadn’t been asking a question, she’d been giving an answer. _

_ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking hell. _

_ Somehow Crowley gets back to her flat. She can’t quite remember how. She’s in her front hall, and then she’s on her sofa, and there’s a tartan thermos of Holy Water on her side table and a glass of whiskey in her hand. _

_ Well. T _ _ hat’s happened then. _

_ The whiskey disappears impossibly quickly. Crowley refills her glass and writhes over every word she’s ever said. She _ _ hadn’t even _ ** _meant _ ** _ anything by it, it was just an innocent comment (don’t lie about it, idiot. How long are you going to try to fool yourself? You couldn’t even fool someone who’s still trying to bring back the gavotte.) _

_ She contemplates going to scream at the plants but then she’d have to stand up. _

_ (You absolute ass. What did you think was going to happen? Did you think she’d touch you? Want you? Did you think she’d ever forget what you are?) _

_ “No, it wasn’t -” Crowley says aloud. The words drop into the silence like a cannon that’s gone off. _

_ But - Aziraphale did bring her Holy Water. Even though she didn’t want to, even though she was worried. And - and - sometimes Aziraphale smiles at her and there was that time in Venice, that time in New York, that night in Ankara where she looked over at Crowley and Crowley thought - _

_ “No,” Crowley says again, resisting the urge to hurl her glass at the wall (what a waste of alcohol that would be, though suitably dramatic.) _

_ Aziraphale’s a bloody _ ** _angel_ ** _ . She looks at everyone like that, she smiles at everyone. She’s a being of love, after all, love just - pours from her. _

_ Probably she feels like she’s being saintly by even speaking to Crowley, let alone going for lunch with her. _

_ Crowley drains the rest of her whiskey, refills it. An ugly thought crawls on its belly into her head. _

_ (I could tempt you.) _

_ If Crowley wanted to, she could bat her eyelids and whisper poisoned honey at Aziraphale. If Crowley wanted, she could beckon one pale hand and Aziraphale would finally know, would know what it felt like to want something so badly your fingers bled with it - _

_ She could do it, if she wanted to (that’s a bloody lie, and it makes Crowley’s head ache.) _

_ Demons can’t put thoughts in anyone’s mind, can’t make humans choose to do something they’d rather not. All they can provide is - encouragement. Justification. It’s easy enough to give most people a little nudge and send them running toward sin. With Aziraphale - there’d be no darkness there to nurture. Not a lustful thought in her head (not about Crowley, anyway. She knows her friend has had - what would the precious angel call ‘em? Paramours? Assignations? - throughout the years. All the better for her. Someone in this arrangement should be enjoying themselves, at least.) _

_ Crowley sighs. Somehow her glass has emptied itself again. _

_ Just take this, take this and put it somewhere else. She fell from the sky once. If she wanted to, Crowley could hold that pain close to the surface of her skin, just waiting for an extra bit of pressure to send it bleeding from her pores. She could soak herself in the rotten memory of fire and bone and the shredded meat of her wings - _

_ But she doesn’t. She has put it away, keeps those feelings somewhere in her wrist, somewhere she can hold them as far from herself as possible. She’ll do that with Aziraphale, with whatever this feeling is (and she _ ** _knows_ ** _ , she knows what it is, but ignorance is easier.) _

_ Right, then. _ _ Take six thousand years and – contain it. It doesn’t need to take up so much room in her chest. Put it somewhere else. _

_ Crowley’ _ _ s a fantastic mess for a couple of days after that, and she won’t think about why. Won’t think about Aziraphale’s eyes in the car, her ruby-throat hummingbird gaze moving over Crowley’s face. Won’t think about the scent of struck matches and sunlight and whatever new product Aziraphale’s using in her hair. It was faint from a distance, but Crowley could have leaned forward (at fucking last), pressed her nose into the curls behind Aziraphale’s ear and inhaled like she was coming up for air after years of being underwater - _

_ No. She won’t think about any of that. _

_ She walks around London when she can force herself to leave the house. Crowley hates walking, it takes her back to the bloody desert and makes her hot and irritable (she’d much rather be driving) but the unpleasantness is a good distraction. Crowley _ _ walks alone, and she sits on benches alone, and she reminds her aching heart that it doesn’t technically need to ache, and if it doesn’t smarten up and just pump blood or whatever she’ll send it off to the Orion Nebula (somewhere under the ache is also that familiar tugging sensation, tension on a rope that Crowley could follow hand-over-hand until she was right outside Aziraphale’s door. _

_ Which she won’t. Of course not.) _

_ On one of these walks, Crowley passes a posh-looking hair salon, the kind that Aziraphale likes. The angel hasn’t even changed her hair in the last few hundred years, and yet she still frequents these ridiculous sorts of places (like she couldn’t just miracle whatever hairstyle she wanted with a snap of her fingers.) _

_ Crowley stands by the shop, looking inside and trying to see the appeal. She catches her reflection in the glass windows, the shaggy red bob that drips down her face like oil paint (and some ancient, scuttling God of Broken Hearts, who calls to the Divine and mundane alike, whispers Crowley’s name.) _

_ “Cut it off,” Crowley says, blowing through the doors and slamming herself down in one of those spinning chairs.“But the glasses stay on.” _

_ She’s finished an hour later, hair short around her ears and jagged on top, and she feels switchblade-sharp and electric. Aziraphale probably wouldn’t even recognize her now if they saw each other on the street (note: Aziraphale absolutely would.) _

_ As Crowley is paying, the person responsible for the transformation (a middle-aged woman with sad eyes and eerily symmetrical black eyeliner) gives her a knowing look. _

_ “He’s not worth the heartache, love,” she says around her cigarette. Crowley must make a horrified expression in response because the lady’s face freezes. Then it - shifts. “Or whoever. Whoever it is. You can’t change yourself for them. If they don’t love you as you are, they never will.” _

_ Crowley leaves without the two bottles of product she’d already paid for, just to end the conversation. _

_ She was an angel once (it was a long time ago.) Much as she’d like to pretend there’s still something angelic in the marrow of her, it’s probably all burned off by now. If Aziraphale feels anything for her at all, it’s pity. _

_ Which is as it should be. Safer for everyone. _

_ Crowley only ever gets her hair cut again when the world is about to end, and Aziraphale won’t run off to the stars with her. Same salon, different hairdresser, but he curls her fringe and drags an electric razor up her neck, and Crowley swaggers out determined that she will never even THINK of Aziraphale, never again. _

_ And then the bookshop burns down. _

_ And Crowley’s useless heart breaks so brightly it lights up all of London. _

_ (The rest is a bit of a blur, frankly.) _

**3) pear**

Tell me how things change.

Is it always dramatic, always crashing thunder and shattering crockery? Does it happen in a rainstorm, in a gunfight, before The Flood, at the Ritz? (It could have, but it doesn’t.)

When Crowley fell, it was like an anchor, or a bullet, or a lead bloody balloon.

Aziraphale fell in tiny steps. Missed stairs. 

Small bites. 

That’s the thing: there are so many ways to fall. Sometimes you don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late, until you’re already at the bottom of the ravine, looking up at a sky that is brimming, overfull with stars.

You’ve fallen, it’s done, and there’s no climbing to safety (that is to say that things don’t change for Aziraphale until one day, they do.)

The first day of the rest of their lives, she and Crowley dine at the Ritz. They toast the world while Aziraphale still vaguely feels the thump of Crowley’s pulse within her own wrists. Still has phantom sensations of long legs and swivelling hips that seemed both unnatural and yet awfully familiar. 

She knows how to move like Crowley. She knows Crowley’s posture, Crowley’s gait. She knows entirely too many things about her. 

Their switch was only for a short time, but Aziraphale finds herself affected by it hours later. Can vaguely smell Crowley’s skin, taste the inside of her mouth.

Anyway. Too much champagne. Let’s just say that and leave it.

They return to the newly formed bookshop, pleasantly tipsy and messy with relief. It feels like they’re allowed to celebrate now, to consider themselves safe and brilliant, even though -

Well. 

It can’t last forever, can it? Heaven and Hell might still come for them one day (just a bit of breathing space before the Big One, as Crowley had said.) And Gabriel doesn’t like losing (once at a Heavenly bonding retreat Aziraphale was stuck with him for an egg and spoon race and it was as nightmarish as you’d think.) 

But that’s - that’s for later. 

Right now there is a bookshop that’s been saved and a bottle of _Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc_ that’s rapidly dwindling between them. Right now there is Crowley and the whole of history stretched out behind and in front of them. 

Right now there is the world.

So even though she has words all washed up like driftwood in her throat, Aziraphale doesn’t say them. Best not ruin the moment. She remembers her promise, her vow to love Crowley in a different, gentler way. Now there is time to put some effort in that direction. Now there’s time to work at - getting over all this.

And her efforts go along nicely for a few more weeks of eating and drinking and walking in parks and her pre-Hays Code American films and Crowley’s awful reality television (“Big Brother was mine.” “Oh, it absolutely was _ not _.”) before Aziraphale says something she shouldn’t. 

And everything falls apart.

“What will you do now? Now that we - might be left alone. At least until things start up again. _ If _ they start up again.” (This is not the thing Aziraphale shouldn’t say, but it’s a step down that uneven path. Wait for it.)

Crowley’s sloppy with wine and sharp-angled on Aziraphale’s sofa. Her glasses are off, and her eyes are like - what? Tourmaline perhaps. A gold with life in it, blood. A gold that would be sun-warmed to the touch. Aziraphale tries not to stare, but it’s difficult. What was it that poor sad poet said about eyes, the one Aziraphale met at Cambridge? _ I lift my eyes and all is born again. _

Aziraphale keeps her eyes lifted. Keeps them fixed on Crowley’s face.

“I’ll figure it out.” Crowley stretches her legs out in front of her, crosses them at the ankle. “Suppose I could always help out around here. Fend off customers.”

Aziraphale does not say that Crowley only seems to attract customers to the bookshop; every time she’s there, there’s a noticeable increase in dark-lashed young women with unusual haircuts, just milling about the place. They don’t buy many books (so that’s all right then) but they do ask Crowley a lot of questions about poetry. Aziraphale doesn’t quite know why.

“You’d be very welcome,” she says instead, and means it. Let the poetry-women come, Crowley can’t help the effect she has on people.“But you’ll stay in London?"

“For now. Where else is worth being? Besides, the plants are used to it. If I up and move the whole lot, I expect they’ll think they can start slacking.” Crowley sets her jaw, looking briefly murderous.

“No, um – trips to the stars then?”

Aziraphale shouldn’t ask. It’s ridiculous of her to ask. Even Crowley seems somewhat unsettled by the question; she gives Aziraphale a slow blink, running the words around in her head like she would a mouthful of _ Talisker _.

“Um - nah.” Crowley traces the rim of her wine glass with her ring finger. “Bit dull up there. Though - a cottage might be nice. Somewhere near the water. Just to get out of the city now and then, have a bit of space. See the sky better.”

“You could - plant a garden.” Aziraphale can already imagine it, can see Crowley snarling invective at a bed of onions and carrot tops, frightening weeds away permanently.

“Hmmm. Couple fruit trees maybe.”

“Not apple."

Crowley pauses. Nods. “Best not.” She’s playing with the edge of her glass like she expects it to make music. “Are you still going to - you know. Keep your hand in? The odd miracle and that?”

Aziraphale realizes she hasn’t even thought about it. “Perhaps - if the situation calls for it. What about you? Still in the - er - tempting business?”

“Ah, no. Can’t see it happening much, not without Bee breathing down my neck.”

“Might put a damper on your social life.” (And that’s the thing, right there. The thing she shouldn’t have said.)

Crowley looks at her. 

“What do you mean?”

Aziraphale immediately realizes that the comment could have sounded - waspish. Judgemental. Perhaps even a bit jealous? Which is not what she intended, not at all.

“I meant -“ She can already feel herself becoming uncomfortably prickly. “I meant. There must have been some - temptations that weren’t - completely unpleasant. You - you know.”

Crowley’s history of temptations is the absolute last thing Aziraphale wants to talk about, especially with this much alcohol in her. 

“I _ don’t _ know.” 

“My dear, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“But you did. You did mean something by it.” Crowley’s lips are becoming thinner and thinner with each passing second; soon they will disappear entirely. “I’m trying to suss out what.”

They should sober up is what they should do, but Crowley is drinking the last of her wine like it’s her job, and Aziraphale doesn’t dare suggest a pause for water.

“All right - the uh, the nuns.”

“Nuns?” Crowley makes a face. “What nuns?”

“In the fifteen hundreds. Denmark. Are you looking for names, dates? I’m sorry, but I -”

“Where did you hear this?”

Now that she’s been asked, Aziraphale can’t - rightly say. The certainty, the solid arguments beneath her feet are cracking, thin ice over dark water. “Just - around. From, you know. Everyone.”

“Ah, yes, Europe in the Middle Ages. Very trustworthy, reliable folk back then. No one losing their head or getting carried away, not at all.”

“Well, what about that Arch Deacon? In thirteen-something.”

“You’ll have to be more specific. Since there were _ so _ many Arch Deacons.” Crowley’s voice is starting to sound like a pair of scissors.

“The one with the - anyway, it doesn’t even matter! Why are you getting upset? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I _ know _ there isn’t. But I don’t know what you think I’ve been doing all these years. Seducing nuns, _ really _ -“

“But - but -“ Aziraphale is re-evaluating more than a few things and it’s like juggling knives. “After those salons in Mantua. You and the Marchioness -“ (Isabella, Aziraphale thinks, and Crowley had been at her ear all night, batting her lashes, laughing low and ruinous, while across the room Aziraphale nearly snapped the stem off her cordial glass with her bare hand (she was a warrior once.). That night, she’d gone off and begged the first willing person she met to take her to bed so she could get the image of Crowley’s red lips out of her mind, so she could think about anything, anything else.)

“D’Este?” Crowley vibrates right off the couch, standing abruptly. “Her husband was having an affair, I was encouraging her to do the same. It was never a - hands-on thing. Satan’s _ sake _, Aziraphale. Never."

“Surely -”

“Never.”

It suddenly strikes Aziraphale that they - might be talking about something else as well. 

“Not - ever?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley won’t look at her. “No.” Is putting her sunglasses back on. “Not - ever.” 

“But I thought -“

“What did you think? That I was going around, having it off with everyone that needed a bit of temptation?”

“Well - yes. The way you look-“

“The way I_ look _?”

“My dear, this conversation has gotten terribly - turned around. I wasn’t implying anything derogatory, truly. Just - that it’s in your nature.”

“What about my nature?”

“You’re a demon. I thought - even the way you look at _ me _ sometimes, you can’t help it -”

“The way I look at you-“

“I know you don’t mean anything by it, it’s simply -”

“I look at you because I’m in _ love _ with you.” Crowley spits the word from her mouth like it’s vinegar.

Then she goes absolutely, clamshell pale. 

Aziraphale forgets how to breath.

“What?”

Crowley’s wine glass drops, shatters on the floor. Before Aziraphale can say another word or get to her feet, Crowley has disappeared.

She’s gone. She’s gone. And she -

“No.” 

Aziraphale stands up, crosses to the space Crowley occupied only a few seconds ago.

“No. No. That’s not - not -” 

What? Not true? Not fair? For Crowley to say that sort of thing and then run away, leave her there alone to bear the weight of it?

“No,” Aziraphale says again. 

This cannot be happening. There’s no possible way that Aziraphale could have gotten everything so wrong that she misread something as significant as this. Spent thousands of years going mad with jealousy about Crowley’s passionate affairs, only to suddenly discover that that jealousy had been for nothing. 

There is no possible way.

Except, it seems. 

There is. 

It has happened. And Crowley’s run off, the worst thing of all.

The Bentley is still outside, half on the pavement and half in the street, when Aziraphale gets downstairs (nearly tumbling down the staircase in her haste). She cannot drive (hasn’t learned and doesn’t care to) so she goes back inside, immediately picks up the telephone.

_ “Hi, this is Antonia Crowley. You know what to do, do it with style.” _

The shrill beep of Crowley’s answering machine makes Aziraphale flinch.

“Crowley,” she says and then - goes blank. No, no, say something. Say anything. “Please ring me back when you get this. I’m so very sorry, you cannot know how sorry I am for the offence I’ve caused.” _ For the offence I’ve caused! _ Aziraphale sounds like a guilty politician. 

“Look, the car is still here. Come back for that at least. We’ll talk about it, talk about - er, everything. Please. Um - ring me back, all right? Please. Good - goodnight.”

Then she goes back upstairs, back to her overly comfortable couch, and the floor covered with shards of glass. She lies down in the spot that she’s come to think of as Crowley’s, imagines she can feel the narrow grooves where the demon’s shoulder-blades fit perfectly.

(“I look at you because -“) _ No _, Aziraphale can’t hear it, not even as a memory.

How could this have happened?

She thinks back to all those moments that she used to handle so delicately, imagining the ways she might have confessed her staggering devotion throughout all of their meetings and partings. France and the Bastille, London and the books, Shakespeare, the Brontës, even that ridiculous paint on her jacket sleeve -

All this time Aziraphale thought it was demonic temptation but - 

Could she really have been so wrong? Really gotten everything backwards?

She should go to Crowley’s flat, is what she should do. She should go to Mayfair and stand outside the door demanding to be let in until Crowley lets her explain. Aziraphale could probably even miracle herself right into the living room - if that’s even where Crowley is right now. If she hasn’t run off to Alpha Centauri. If she isn’t off in space, all alone.

Aziraphale stares at nothing, fretting like anything. What if she leaves and Crowley comes back to the shop? What if she goes to Crowley’s flat and Crowley doesn’t want to see her? What if she gets it all wrong?

(“I look at you because I’m in -“)

“But you _ aren’t _,” Aziraphale says to herself, under her breath. Someone like Crowley - couldn’t be. Not with someone like her. It’s not how this works, not how any of it works. 

Aziraphale was prepared to keep all these feelings secreted away inside her until they dulled, or changed into something more appropriate. She was never going to tell anyone - that would be absolutely unbearable, the worst possible thing she can imagine, the humiliation of it, the - _ oh. _

Oh, Crowley (she wasn’t even a warrior once. She’s not allowed to be the brave one.)

Aziraphale tries the sentence again (“I look at you because I’m in _love_ with you.”), whispers it to herself so quietly she almost can’t make out the words. It’s easier. Just take it slowly. (Don’t go too fast.)

But Aziraphale has been taking things slowly for centuries. 

The glass shards crunch like leaves beneath the soles of her sensible shoes as she gets off the couch, and heads back downstairs. With chattering fingers, she makes another call.

“_ Hi, this is Antonia Crowley _-”

“Hello again. I - um - you probably don’t really want to hear this now -“ _ Someone else say this for me _ , Aziraphale prays, _ I’ll ruin it, I’ll ruin everything _. 

Then she remembers the feeling of a sword in her hand, hot as blue flame. Remembers what it felt like to step forward into battle because she wanted to, because she had something to fight for. To fall for. “You see. That is. I’m in love with you as well.”

The world does not end. Not yet at least. It didn’t end weeks ago, and it doesn’t end now, not even after she’s said the words out loud.

“I - love you, my dear. Have done for ages. I’ve been quite - out of my head, really, just - in pieces about you. And I didn’t want to tell you like this, but I don’t know where you are right now. So please. Ring me back - if you like.” 

Surprising absolutely no one, Crowley does not ring her back.

* * *

It takes three days.

It feels longer.

Aziraphale keeps the shop closed, can’t even fathom looking at customers. She doesn’t drink, barely eats. It’s all sounds very romantic, of course, this wasting away from lovesickness, but it feels about as romantic as dental surgery. She replays interactions in her head too many times to keep track of: things Crowley said, looks she gave her, little gestures that Aziraphale misinterpreted completely. She tries rearranging the shop but only ends up with the poetry section all strewn about the floor as she seeks out the writers that will hurt her the most (“_ the way love will leave you, unspooled, the way you become your own vulture _-”)

No, unacceptable.

No more Stroud. Aziraphale is cut off. No more Neruda either, no more Glück. In fact, maybe a break from poetry generally would be for the best.

She doesn’t call Crowley again. Neither does she show up at Crowley’s flat. She can’t - can’t push. It wouldn’t be fair, not after the way they left things. She needs to be patient, let Crowley come back when she will (Aziraphale has maybe one more day of patience left before it all dissolves into very rash and desperate action, grand romantic gestures in public, mad dashes to the airport. Sky-writing. That sort of thing.)

It’s dusk, and the sky is orange and anxious (and Aziraphale has started to feel an odd tugging sensation around her ribcage) when there’s a knock on the bookshop door. At first she thinks she must have imagined it - but the knocking comes again.

Standing in the street, Crowley is black against black, sunglasses hiding her eyes, lipstick dark on her gentle mouth. Aziraphale looks at her and immediately bursts into tears.

“Oh, for - no, _ don’t, _really -”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what - it just started -” Aziraphale frantically wipes at her face. She doesn’t cry, she never cries. It all came out of nowhere, emotion rising like the sea and spilling over.

“Hey, it’s all right, it’s - fine. Really, it’s —“ The softness of Crowley’s voice just makes things worse, and Aziraphale forces herself to take a breath and hold it until she can speak again. 

“Will you - come in?” she asks, only wavering a bit, catching stray tears with the back of her hand. “You will, won’t you?”

If Crowley says no, if Crowley only came to look for the Bentley (most likely towed by now) Aziraphale will disintegrate into eyes and spines and feathers, and never be seen again.

But Crowley nods. 

Lets herself be ushered through the doorway and upstairs, lets Aziraphale take her coat from her shoulders (it’s warm and smells like Crowley, and Aziraphale shouldn’t have touched it.)

“I got your message.” Crowley sits on the couch, studying her hands. 

Aziraphale just hovers, watery-eyed, around her. She’s unable to land anywhere, a bird about to dive. Her arms still smell like Crowley’s jacket. 

“You said you wanted to talk,” Crowley says.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“And you said - that other thing.”

“I did, yes.” Why is this so hard? They’ve both said - said they _ loved _ each other; this should be the simplest thing in the world. For Heaven’s sake - please don’t let the ‘saying things’ bit be the easy part. Surely it’s the hardest one. Surely everything else just lines itself up afterwards. “You know, I’m being a terrible host. Perhaps I’ll just - get us. Something.”

Deliberately avoiding Crowley’s gaze, Aziraphale waves a hand in the direction of the kitchen and then flees. Yes, this is a good idea - she should have thought of it sooner. Food, at least, is a language she can speak.

On a thick plank of olive wood, she cuts up pears and sharp white cheddar, arranges slices of French bread, and Cerignola olives that taste like mouthfuls of butter. She has some _ Rosette de Lyon _ sausage and - grapes, yes there have to be grapes, and Ricotta cheese that she drizzles with honey. She opens a lovely bottle of _ Cab Franc _, gives it a moment to breathe.

This, she can do.

She ducks briefly into the lavatory on a whim, stupidly wanting to look in the mirror. 

All right, yes - there she is. 

The unremarkable body she’s always claimed to love is a bit puffy around the eyes, but that can’t be helped. It’s still a good body, it carries her around. It enjoys so many wonderful things.

It’s nothing to write sonnets over (bit matronly, Gabriel had said. Lose the gut, he’d said.)

Doesn’t matter. Aziraphale doesn’t need sonnets. She could write her own if she wanted to (though she’s more of a reader; her few attempts at poetry have been – middling.)

And anyway, Crowley knows what she looks like. 

Crowley knows. 

“Stop being foolish,” Aziraphale tells her reflection, which immediately seems quite a foolish thing to do.

She ruffles her pale curls just so she can feel as though she’s made some kind of effort. Then she goes back to the kitchen, takes the food and the wine and two glasses to the back room where -

Where Crowley is messing with her hair in the reflection on the glass coffee table. She drops her hands immediately as Aziraphale strides in (is her hair a bit more red than it was the last time they saw each other? Or - shorter? There’s something about it -)

“I just pulled a few things together,” Aziraphale says quickly, because once she starts thinking too much about Crowley’s flamelick hair, whole days can get away from her.

“You pulled an entire bloody kitchen together. You didn't -”

“It was nothing.” Aziraphale sets the tray down on the table between them. The armchair that is her usual seat has a stack of books on it. Aziraphale bends to move them out of the way. And then - doesn’t. 

She turns around. 

Doesn’t say a word as she takes a seat beside Crowley instead, at the other end of the couch. Doesn’t look at her. Pours the wine so that her hands have something to do.

“The - the lady at the market said these would be the best pears I ever tasted, but only after they ripened for four days exactly. I’d hate to miss their moment.” 

“Did she tell you not to eat them after midnight? Spin them twice counter-clockwise?”

“Yes, of course. I only ever buy occult pears.” 

Crowley drinks her wine. Aziraphale does too (if her mouth is occupied she can’t say something more stupid than _ occult pears _.) 

“Where did you go?” she asks eventually, when she trusts herself again.

“Just south, for a bit. Wandered around. Nice place, South Downs.”

“You didn’t need to run away.”

“I wasn’t running away,” Crowley says sharply. “I needed some - air.”

“Right. Yes, of course.”Aziraphale reaches for a piece of bread, spreads some ricotta over it. Takes a bite. (You said you loved me. That you were in love with me. Have I ruined that too?) “Well. I’m - I am very glad you came back.” 

Crowley makes a half-hearted gesture with one shoulder, a shrug and a wince and an acknowledgement of the awkwardness that seems to be saturating their hair and their clothing and every page of every book in the shop.

“Would you like an olive?” Aziraphale asks hopefully. 

Crowley shakes her head, so Aziraphale pops one in her mouth, bites too hard on the pit.

She watches Crowley drink her wine. Watches the snake-smooth bob of her throat, and the dark polish on her nails (all picked away from the edges.) _ Six thousand years _. Aziraphale is either going to choke on this olive pit, or choke on all that wasted time. 

They really should be better at talking to one another by now.

“That thing that I said. About - about your nature.”

Crowley’s jaw clenches, but Aziraphale refuses to be put off. 

“When I said – the way you looked at me – it wasn’t because –“

“Because I’m a demon? Right, no, couldn’t possibly _ feel _ anything, had to have some ulterior motive, some -"

“Just let me say this, would you? Then you can argue with me all you like.” Aziraphale takes a deep breath. Takes a drink of wine. (All right, eats another olive.) “It wasn’t about you. It was about me.”

Crowley shakes her head a bit, but stays silent. The top two buttons of her black shirt are undone; her collarbones are straight-lined and deep enough to catch rainwater in.

It’s completely unfair, the way Crowley looks. The way Crowley looks at Aziraphale. 

“I - couldn’t believe it meant anything because – darling.” (Ah, here we are, take your sword and carve through the vines of it.) Aziraphale gestures to herself with a hand that is suddenly unsteady. “I’m like – this.”

“I know what you’re like,” Crowley says quickly, the words bitten out between thin lips. “I -”

“I’m - comfortable. A bit – er, matronly. And that’s fine of course, but _ you _ –“ Her voice catches. This shouldn’t be as difficult as it is (why are those first steps so frightening when there are so many more steps to tumble down -) “Crowley, you are so _wonder_–”

“_Stop_,” Crowley cuts her off. “Just - you don’t have to say. That.”

Her shoulders are raised like armour. She falls silent again and Aziraphale hates this, hates this wretched quiet.

So she takes a slice of pear.

“But my dear, I do have to - _o_ _ h God in Heaven _.” She closes her eyes at the taste of it, the perfect sweetness of the fruit at her lips. Juice runs down the line of her thumb and she licks it away, feeling like some sort of clumsy hedonist in front of her poised, stone-silent friend.

But when she looks back at Crowley, Crowley is watching her. And her mouth is open.

“Sorry, sorry. I - the fruit-seller was right. Indescribable. You must try one.”

Crowley glances at the tray and then back to Aziraphale. She says nothing, and Aziraphale waits for the “I’m all right,” the “more for you,” the “maybe later” - 

But then - Crowley nods. A flush is starting to blossom up her long throat, her cheekbones, the tips of her ears.

Something is happening. 

Aziraphale doesn’t know what. There is electricity in the air, humming like a plucked string.

She reaches out. Takes a slice of pear. Her hands are shaking (something - something is happening.)

Trying not to overthink things, trying not to start feeling self-conscious or ridiculous (Gabriel, you can sod right off) Aziraphale lifts the pear toward Crowley’s mouth. She can’t see Crowley’s eyes but she can feel the intensity of that amber gaze upon her face.

Crowley swallows. 

“If this - if this is pity -“

Aziraphale shakes her head. “No, never -“

“If this is you being,” Crowley takes a shuddering breath, “saintly -“

“_ Please. _” Aziraphale doesn’t know where that word comes from, only that it’s been waiting six thousand years to be said just like this.

Crowley leans forward then, a fraction of movement only, and takes a bite (her lips brush the tips of Aziraphale’s fingers, and surely if anything is a miracle, it’s this.)

On her second bite, Crowley sucks the entire pad of Aziraphale’s thumb into her mouth. It’s still sticky with juice, and Aziraphale feels the soft swipe of Crowley’s tongue against it before she pulls back, lets it slide from Crowley’s lips.

They stare at each other.

So. 

That’s - a thing that happened.

Aziraphale wants to ask - a whole angelic host of questions (Is this right? Is this what you want?) but the moment seems so fragile that the wrong tone of voice could shatter it. 

So. 

She takes another slice of pear from the tray, bites it in half (it’s just as delicious as the first one). She holds the other half toward Crowley’s mouth, and when Crowley takes it her tongue licks up the centre of Aziraphale’s palm and Aziraphale makes a sound that she didn’t know she could make, like wood splintering (“_Ah_ \- darling") and Crowley’s lips are still on Aziraphale’s hand, a hint of teeth against her knuckle, a searing kiss against the heel of her palm, tongue traveling smoothly over her wrist.

When she finally leans back, Crowley’s lips are shining. Their mouths must taste the same right now - the grainy, honeyed juice of pears. It’s almost like - like a kiss. Like they were kissing.

Then Crowley turns away. 

She takes a swig of wine and ruffles agitated hands through her agitated hair. Aziraphale wonders if she overstepped - if that wasn’t at all the right thing to do. She takes another bite of pear so she doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask about all the things she may have just done wrong, and when Crowley turns back, Aziraphale’s hand is at her mouth and her chin is wet with juice and Crowley - takes her glasses off. 

Says “_angel_,” like the word is an obscenity and a prayer.

Then she moves (_on_ her, over her, climbing into Aziraphale’s lap and warm, warm in her arms).

When they kiss, it tastes like pears and _ Cab Franc _. Crowley tastes a bit like smoke as well, and there’s still something of the desert on her skin, something that throws Aziraphale back through time, back to a world of heat and desolation. Crowley’s teeth are sharp, but her hands are gentle in Aziraphale’s hair, touching her as if she’s something precious, something delicate (Aziraphale is not delicate, but she finds that on this occasion, she rather enjoys the illusion.)

The kiss is terrible - in the old sense of the word, inspiring a deadly sort of awe. It’s the sort of kiss that ravages, burns down villages, salts the earth.

It’s the sort of kiss that Aziraphale almost wishes she could take back - because there will be nothing comparable after this, nothing. The end of the world, the fullness of the universe - they’ll all be diminished now that Aziraphale has tasted Crowley’s tongue, felt the sinuous movements Crowley makes against her hips when Aziraphale pulls her closer.

(_ There are so many ways it could have happened _.

_ But this is the way it finally does _:)

In Aziraphale’s bed, on top of the shearling blankets. 

A bedside lamp covered with a scarf, a spill of diaphanous light, and two bodies pressed tight against each other, legs tangled. 

Crowley makes a sound like a purr when Aziraphale cards fingers through her hair, makes a sound like a sob when Aziraphale’s grip tightens (hips jerking hard against her.)

“Let me -“ Crowley gasps, “Just - let me, please -“

“Anything.” Aziraphale presses her mouth to the edge of Crowley’s jaw, the side of her neck - _ oh _, that’s a nice sound, she’ll remember that spot later. “I love you, you must know -“

Crowley moans low in her throat, cuts Aziraphale off with another deep kiss.

“Please, angel, you - oh _ fuck _ -“

“What do you want?”

“To - to touch you, can I -“

“Yes, yes, of course.“

Crowley’s hands are under Aziraphale’s shirt then, pushing it up to smooth palms over the curves of her hips, swell of her stomach. She pulls back to press kisses there as well, the softest part of her, and Aziraphale lets her, doesn’t even think of being shy. Crowley kisses her like she could do it forever, and Aziraphale feels like a feast, feels delicious as pears and peaches, sun-warmed, sweet -

“Crowley - darling, I -“

“Can I -“ Crowley’s hands stop over the button of Aziraphale’s trousers (her hands are shaking, Aziraphale realizes, and it sparks a wildfire in the heart of her.) “I don’t - I don’t know what -“

“I’ll show you,” Aziraphale says. As buttons are undone, as her pants are pushed hungrily down her hips, she takes Crowley’s lovely, long-fingered hand and puts it where she wants it.

It’s been awhile, but she remembers this.

Crowley fucks her with one finger first, then two. The whole time she is above Aziraphale looking down, eyes ravenous on her face. The whole time she is murmuring things, promises and blasphemies and words that make Aziraphale long to close her eyes against the brightness (“I can feel you, you bloody _gorgeoussss_ \- _ Angel, _ fuck -like this? Oh fucking God that's - is that what you like? Can you come like this, with my hand - is that-“)

“Yes, _yes_ -“

“Tell me, tell me if this is-“

Crowley is kissing her when she comes, shaking apart like rose petals. There’s a sound in her throat that she’s never heard before, a love poem that sings out of her bones (and Aziraphale doesn’t burst into tears again, and her wings don't unfurl like lightning against the mattress -but both are a near thing.) She sighs instead, and Crowley kisses her throat, her neck, her jaw. Kisses her eyelids, brow-bone, mouth mouth _ mouth _ -

Later, it happens again: Aziraphale rides Crowley’s beautiful hands, biting her tongue and covering her face before Crowley pushes her flat on her back, bites hotly up Aziraphale’s thighs (“_ show me this too-” _) and licks her way inside her.

And later, Crowley lets Aziraphale touch her. 

“But I want to keep my clothes on,” she says, “if that’s - all right.” 

Her eyes are anxious, as if Aziraphale would ever say no to anything she asked. That has to change, Aziraphale decides immediately. Like the stray cat outside the shop - Aziraphale will murmur sweet, soft things to Crowley until she realizes she’s safe enough to come inside. To stay, always.

“Of course.” Aziraphale kisses the relief from Crowley’s skin. Of course it’s all right - everything is all right with Aziraphale when she has her hands up Crowley’s shirt and down her jeans, is sucking bruises against those gorgeous bloody collarbones.

"It's all right?"

“Anything,” Aziraphale says, and means it. “Anything you like.” 

This is so much more than she ever thought she’d have. It’s more than she ever thought she’d feel (do humans feel this much as well? Impossible. How could they live with this ache locked inside them, pacing like an animal? How could they bear this wild wild wanting -)

“My darling,” Aziraphale murmurs, and Crowley is wet against her hand and black ink against her sheets. Her eyes are squeezed shut and her hips move helplessly, following the slide of Aziraphale’s fingers. “I love you, I do, so very much.”

When she comes, Crowley opens her eyes. 

“Bloody _ fucking _ hell, you - just, please - just - _ Aziraphale _ ,” she says, “ _ Aziraphale. _”

Her face is like a rose turning toward the sun.

Later still, Aziraphale feeds her slices of pear, kissing the taste from her mouth between sips of wine. Crowley’s lipstick isn’t even smudged; it’s completely unfair.

“The first time I saw you,” Crowley says low against the hollow of Aziraphale’s throat. “I wanted to bite you.”

Aziraphale laughs, scandalized.

“I don’t even know why,” the demon continues, lazy with contentment. “Thought you’d taste like a peach.”

“How wicked you are.”

Crowley snorts. “Oh, go on. You love my wickedness.”

Aziraphale’s hands tangle in Crowley’s hair again, can’t seem to stay out of it. This may be a problem later. Aziraphale loves soft things, and nothing compares to the softness of the demon in her bed.

“I do,” she says, “I really do.”

(There are many ways to fall. Crowley fell quickly. Aziraphale took her time. That’s all right, though. They both ended up in the same place in the end.)

“How long?” Crowley asks after a few silent moments, and Aziraphale isn’t quite sure how to answer that. Has to think about it. She sifts through her dragon’s hoard of memories, looking for that one moment her feelings changed. 

She can’t find it.

“Always,” she says, and it’s the truth. 

It’s true.

** _Post-Credits (Epilogue):_ **

_ The Angel of the Eastern Gate has her hair tucked up under a wide-brimmed hat, only a few short strands hanging at the nape of her neck. The sky is overcast and slate grey, but the angel insisted on the giant sunhat regardless (“It’s my gardening hat,” she told Crowley, and Crowley wasn’t about to argue with her.) Their garden is humming with bees, and Aziraphale is singing softly to herself (to the plants, let’s be honest, and probably some wretched soft-rock nonsense that in any other voice would make Crowley’s skin crawl) as she putters around. _

_ Aziraphale putters. She does not garden. She frankly doesn’t have the patience for it, but strangely enough their garden is flourishing (Crowley will go out and threaten the plants later, when Aziraphale is reading or cooking or has gone to town for the market. Or maybe the plant-abuse can wait until tomorrow - maybe they’ll both go into town tonight, pick up a few things, eat at that little German place Aziraphale likes. It means Crowley gets to drive, which is always worth it.) _

_ The Angel of the Eastern Gate still looks like an angel, even with dirt on her knees and a worn plaid shirt and a pair of floral gardening gloves. _

_ And the Angel of the Eastern Gate loves her. Loves Crowley. A red-haired demon made of chicken bones and rattling nerves and so many questions they pushed her off the edge of a cloud. _

_ Aziraphale has no problem talking about love now, tells Crowley every day, calls her all sorts of ridiculous pet names that make the floodwaters rise dangerously in her chest (my dear, my darling, lovely thing, gorgeous creature). It feels a bit like heaven might, and that makes Crowley panic. She’s unforgivable of course, but she can still remember the sensation of being awash with light, overflowing like gold from her eyes and mouth. The memory is - a lot to hold. Some times. _

_ Aziraphale glances up from a juniper bush, and notices Crowley watching from the window (Crowley is grateful for her sunglasses right now, Satan only knows what her eyes must be doing). The angel smiles and wipes her forehead, leaving a black smear of soil above her eyebrow. _

_ Crowley stares. Can’t stop staring. _

_ Fuck going into town, to hell with dinner, she’ll just push Aziraphale up against the closest hard surface as soon as she’s within reach and never be hungry ever again. Everything about the angel is soft and perfect; Crowley’s particularly attached to her thighs, thinks about touching them, biting them, pushing them apart more often than she probably should and - _

_ “Darling, are you coming outside or just lurking about?”Aziraphale calls through the glass at her, grinning. _

_ Crowley doesn’t want to think about the expression on her face, or what Aziraphale might have seen when she looked at her. So she goes outside. _

_ The air is thick with a coming storm, the taste of lightning hovering on Crowley’s tongue. _

_ “Hello love.” Aziraphale is distracted by something in the shrubbery. “Do you think this is a bird’s nest? Or some sort of reptile -” _

_ How long? Crowley asked her once. She wants to keep asking. When did you know? How did it start? Can you write it down, put it on the calendar? I want to know the date so I can remember what I ate and what I wore and how I spent every hour. I want to draw an ‘x’ on our timeline, want to know how many days I’ve been at the roots of you, making you blossom. Want to hoard each one, keep them like coins, kiss you for every day I didn’t know. _

_ Call me ‘love’ again, Crowley wants to say, ‘even though it hurts a little. I’ll get used to it eventually (I’ll _ ** _never_ ** _ get used to it, but I want to. I swear I’ll try.) _

_ “Looks like rain,” she says instead. _

_ Crowley was an angel, once. Before she fell. Aziraphale was a warrior once (she fell too.) _

_ (Things change.) _

_ “You may be right. Think I felt a drop just there.” Aziraphale cranes her neck upwards, studying the sky. _

_ (But not everything.) _

_ There’s an alarming crack of thunder, and the rain starts coming down sudden and hard. Aziraphale laughs as she pulls Crowley under the eave of their cottage, keeps the storm from touching her. Her skin is warm against Crowley’s cheekbone, the tip of her nose (Aziraphale is always warm.) _

_ They stay like this for a few moments, pressed close together in silence. An angel and a demon, looking out over the wide, wet (lovely) world. _

  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm @mia-ugly on Tumblr. Come say hi.


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